RedNeckGeek
Super Member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2011
- Messages
- 8,753
- Location
- Butte County & Orcutt, California
- Tractor
- Kubota M62, Kubota L3240D HST (SOLD!), Kubota RTV900
Good Morning! 57F @ 6:15AM. Sunny. High 77F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
David, that looks like quite a long boat. Have you any shots that show the whole thing?
Most firing ranges do collect the fallen brass, Drew. They'll sell the centerfire stuff to reloading companies, and the rimfire to scrap yards. Unlike steel, pricing is still relatively strong for non-ferrous metals.
We spent all day Saturday waiting for an inmate crew that never appeared, and yesterday when they finally did show up they were sent down to the park land to spread brush on the open fire line. As a result the chipper and excavator sat idle again for several hours. When they finally did get back up here they had only two chainsaws for the two dozen of them, so most of the work resembled Brownian Motion with people walking around doing pretty much random things. At one point the chipper operator shut it down because nobody on the crew was feeding him branches, and the two crew supervisors didn't notice for most of an hour. When I spoke with one of them about the hold up, he somehow blamed the chipper man, then maligned his crew as being unmanageable. Earlier in the morning I had given him a gauge stick I'd marked every 18" so that the trees could be bucked into lengths that would result in little or no waste when I reduced them to wood stove size later, but it sat unused the whole day because he couldn't be bothered to talk to any of the crew about it. I don't mean to sound unappreciative of the work these men are doing, but the downed trees are my property, and I don't at all appreciate the wasteful way they are being treated. Today I'll go down to the wood piles and try to get some help loading pieces into the tractor bucket, then ferry it up to my little wood yard so I can process it myself later. Hopefully that'll both speed things up and cut down on the chain saw massacre.
On the other hand, the operator on the excavator is very helpful, and has promised to make sure that the pad on which the chipper rests is expanded to reach a low bench at the bottom of the hill. If that comes to pass I'll have good tractor access to all the wood that is stacked above there, a good thing because right now the biggest piles can only be reached by driving on what's left of the meadow grass. Moving all the wood from the top would require more trips than the grass would tolerate, leading to more permanent tracks to reseed this fall. I've also asked him to relocate several large 2'-3' sized rocks so I can more easily reach them with the tractor, and he's agreeable.
But I've also been warned that a new 800 acre fire has started north of here, and we could lose both the inmate crew and the equipment if it continues to spread. If that should happen chances of getting them back are slim to none, as the muckety mucks are trying to wind down the reparation effort ASAP to control costs. I tell them I'm in no hurry as long as ALL the necessary work is done, but once again they shrug their shoulders and say they have no choice. Man, I sure hope I don't have to sue the state to get this mess cleaned up and replanted!
Hope everyone's week gets off to a great start!
David, that looks like quite a long boat. Have you any shots that show the whole thing?
Most firing ranges do collect the fallen brass, Drew. They'll sell the centerfire stuff to reloading companies, and the rimfire to scrap yards. Unlike steel, pricing is still relatively strong for non-ferrous metals.
We spent all day Saturday waiting for an inmate crew that never appeared, and yesterday when they finally did show up they were sent down to the park land to spread brush on the open fire line. As a result the chipper and excavator sat idle again for several hours. When they finally did get back up here they had only two chainsaws for the two dozen of them, so most of the work resembled Brownian Motion with people walking around doing pretty much random things. At one point the chipper operator shut it down because nobody on the crew was feeding him branches, and the two crew supervisors didn't notice for most of an hour. When I spoke with one of them about the hold up, he somehow blamed the chipper man, then maligned his crew as being unmanageable. Earlier in the morning I had given him a gauge stick I'd marked every 18" so that the trees could be bucked into lengths that would result in little or no waste when I reduced them to wood stove size later, but it sat unused the whole day because he couldn't be bothered to talk to any of the crew about it. I don't mean to sound unappreciative of the work these men are doing, but the downed trees are my property, and I don't at all appreciate the wasteful way they are being treated. Today I'll go down to the wood piles and try to get some help loading pieces into the tractor bucket, then ferry it up to my little wood yard so I can process it myself later. Hopefully that'll both speed things up and cut down on the chain saw massacre.
On the other hand, the operator on the excavator is very helpful, and has promised to make sure that the pad on which the chipper rests is expanded to reach a low bench at the bottom of the hill. If that comes to pass I'll have good tractor access to all the wood that is stacked above there, a good thing because right now the biggest piles can only be reached by driving on what's left of the meadow grass. Moving all the wood from the top would require more trips than the grass would tolerate, leading to more permanent tracks to reseed this fall. I've also asked him to relocate several large 2'-3' sized rocks so I can more easily reach them with the tractor, and he's agreeable.
But I've also been warned that a new 800 acre fire has started north of here, and we could lose both the inmate crew and the equipment if it continues to spread. If that should happen chances of getting them back are slim to none, as the muckety mucks are trying to wind down the reparation effort ASAP to control costs. I tell them I'm in no hurry as long as ALL the necessary work is done, but once again they shrug their shoulders and say they have no choice. Man, I sure hope I don't have to sue the state to get this mess cleaned up and replanted!
Hope everyone's week gets off to a great start!
